Motor vehicles require periodic servicing, and some of that servicing involves the use of electrical equipment that is connected to a vehicle's electrical system at a service facility. Various pieces of electrical equipment may be used, and one piece of equipment is sometimes referred to as an electronic service tool, or EST for short.
An EST contains a data processing system that processes certain data according to certain algorithms for evaluating the operation of a vehicle and/or operation of various components of the vehicle. Such operation may be current or historic. For example, certain industry standards define certain fault codes for various components and/or operation of vehicle components. An EST can interrogate a vehicle's electrical system to ascertain if any fault flags have, either at present or in the past, been set for the various fault codes.
An EST can therefore serve as a diagnostic aid for identifying potentially non-compliant components and/or operation, and hence, aid servicing personnel in properly servicing a motor vehicle.
For properly evaluating any particular vehicle, an EST must itself contain proper background data relating to the particular vehicle. A vehicle whose electrical system comprises one or more electrical data processing systems, an example of one such system being an electronic engine control system, stores certain data that is particular to that vehicle. Each item of data characterizes a specific component in the vehicle or a specific operation performed in the vehicle.
Certain industry standards, such as ATA (American Trucking Association) standards, define certain items of interest for certain vehicle components and certain specific operations. Other items of interest include fault codes for identifying particular faults that may be occurring at present, or may have occurred in the past, and programmable parameters that are specified by a vehicle manufacturer for the particular vehicle. Some examples of the foregoing items are: engine speed, engine oil pressure, engine oil temperature out of range high, and cruise control vehicle speed high limit.
Diagnostic equipment such as an EST is typically purchased or leased by a service facility, such as a motor vehicle dealer or repair facility. It may represent a significant capital investment. Accordingly, it often desirable for a particular piece of equipment to be capable of servicing as large a universe of vehicles as possible. Because new vehicle models are periodically introduced by vehicle manufacturers, an EST that has already been in service may be unable to service the new models.
It has heretofore been necessary for service facilities to procure new EST's for servicing new vehicle models, or to update their existing ones. In either instance, the vehicle manufacturer is the original source for either new update information and/or new equipment specifications. One known way of updating a piece of service equipment such as an EST is for a vehicle manufacturer to specify that the piece of equipment have a replaceable a cartridge that can be removed and replaced from time to time by an updated cartridge containing new items of information for its vehicles, either additional to existing items, or in replacement of certain existing items.
One can therefore appreciate that a vehicle manufacturer must devote significant resources to enable service equipment in the field to handle all of its vehicles. Accordingly, procedures that accomplish that objective and that are less burdensome on resources, both manufacturers' and servicing facilities', are believed beneficial to improving organizational efficiencies and cost-effectiveness.